Ricky Donnell Ross

A key prosecution witness in the civil rights trial of six Los Angeles County narcotics officers testified Thursday that he lied in 1987 when he told his attorney that one of the defendants struck him with a flashlight during a jailhouse interview. Ricky Donnell Ross, a convicted drug dealer, had accused Los Angeles Police Detective Stephen W. Polak of hitting him in the head.

A federal judge on Friday kept open the possibility that jailed drug dealer "Freeway" Ricky Ross could be granted a new trial, saying that a U.S. Justice Department probe into the ex-kingpin's 1996 conviction raised enough questions to merit further review. U.S.

October 20, 1996 | JESSE KATZ, This story was reported by Times staff writers Ralph Frammolino, Jesse Katz, Victor Merina, Tony Perry, Bill Rempel, Claire Speigel and Dan Weikel. It was written by Katz

The crack epidemic in Los Angeles followed no blueprint or master plan. It was not orchestrated by the Contras or the CIA or any single drug ring. No one trafficker, even the kingpins who sold thousands of kilos and pocketed millions of dollars, ever came close to monopolizing the trade.

An appeals court has overturned the life sentence of onetime Los Angeles cocaine lord Ricky Ross, saying that a judge erred when she sentenced Ross under a federal three-strikes law. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff to resentence Ross, whose links to a former leader of the Nicaraguan Contras, Oscar Danilo Blandon, spawned a public furor.

The notorious Los Angeles drug lord known as Freeway Rick, who once boasted that his coast-to-coast cocaine empire grossed more than $1 million a day, walked out of a Texas jail Wednesday and vowed to return home in search of redemption.

A convicted drug dealer, who ran one of Los Angeles' largest cocaine rings before expanding to other states, testified Wednesday that his 10-year prison sentence may be sliced in half and he could retain $2 million in drug assets after a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

Ricky Donnell Ross, the legendary Los Angeles drug lord who vowed to pursue a legitimate business career after his release from prison last fall, has been indicted for allegedly purchasing 100 kilograms of cocaine from an undercover agent, authorities said Tuesday. Ross, 35--a charismatic, dreadlocked, ex-millionaire better known as Freeway Rick--could face a life sentence if convicted.

Onetime crack cocaine kingpin "Freeway" Ricky Ross, whose case renewed a national controversy about alleged CIA involvement in drug dealing, was sentenced to life in prison by a judge who said Ross cannot use unproven allegations about the CIA to escape the maximum punishment for being an "eager participant" in the illicit drug trade. "Mr. Ross does not get a free pass to deal drugs the rest of his life and addict further people because of something that happened in the 1980s," said U.S.

If there was an eye to the storm, if there was a criminal mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los Angeles' streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick. He didn't make the drug and he didn't smuggle it across the border, but Ricky Donnell Ross did more than anyone else to democratize it, boosting volume, slashing prices and spreading disease on a scale never before conceived.

A judge deciding the fate of onetime Los Angeles crack kingpin "Freeway" Ricky Ross ordered prosecutors Friday to rebut his lawyer's contention that Ross was an unwitting dupe of the CIA. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff asked prosecutors to provide proof that the Central Intelligence Agency never "participated in or condoned" drug dealings by Nicaraguan rebels, including the smuggling of tons of cocaine into Los Angeles during the 1980s.

Onetime crack cocaine kingpin "Freeway" Ricky Ross, whose case renewed a national controversy about alleged CIA involvement in drug dealing, was sentenced to life in prison by a judge who said Ross cannot use unproven allegations about the CIA to escape the maximum punishment for being an "eager participant" in the illicit drug trade. "Mr. Ross does not get a free pass to deal drugs the rest of his life and addict further people because of something that happened in the 1980s," said U.S.

The Central Intelligence Agency said Tuesday that it has no record of any CIA relationship with the principal members of a Nicaraguan-American cocaine trafficking ring that operated in California during the 1980s. In a legal declaration filed in federal court in San Diego and released in Washington, the CIA said it knew as early as 1984 that cocaine smuggler Norvin Meneses was a major drug trafficker.

The chief in-house investigator at the Central Intelligence Agency told a Senate committee Wednesday that he will need more time than first expected to complete his inquiry into whether the CIA was connected with the introduction of crack cocaine to the United States. "The size of the information base that must be thoroughly reviewed . . . is enormous," CIA Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz said at a packed hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

October 20, 1996 | JESSE KATZ, This story was reported by Times staff writers Ralph Frammolino, Jesse Katz, Victor Merina, Tony Perry, Bill Rempel, Claire Speigel and Dan Weikel. It was written by Katz

The crack epidemic in Los Angeles followed no blueprint or master plan. It was not orchestrated by the Contras or the CIA or any single drug ring. No one trafficker, even the kingpins who sold thousands of kilos and pocketed millions of dollars, ever came close to monopolizing the trade.

A 6-year-old motion filed in a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department corruption case is adding fuel to a burgeoning public discussion over the alleged participation of U.S. government agents in drug trafficking and weapons shipments. The motion, filed in 1990 by Century City defense lawyer Harland W. Braun, alleges that sheriff's deputies serving a search warrant in 1986 turned up evidence linking CIA operatives to military activities in Central America and drug sales in Los Angeles.

Newspaper reports that the CIA may have eased the way for a Latin American cocaine ring to push tons of the drug into South-Central Los Angeles are creating a firestorm of political and social reaction. The claims, published last month by the San Jose Mercury News, have a special resonance among African Americans because black neighborhoods have been the hardest hit by the crack cocaine epidemic.

Newspaper reports that the CIA may have eased the way for a Latin American cocaine ring to push tons of the drug into South-Central Los Angeles are creating a firestorm of political and social reaction. The claims, published last month by the San Jose Mercury News, have a special resonance among African Americans because black neighborhoods have been the hardest hit by the crack cocaine epidemic.

A judge deciding the fate of onetime Los Angeles crack kingpin "Freeway" Ricky Ross ordered prosecutors Friday to rebut his lawyer's contention that Ross was an unwitting dupe of the CIA. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff asked prosecutors to provide proof that the Central Intelligence Agency never "participated in or condoned" drug dealings by Nicaraguan rebels, including the smuggling of tons of cocaine into Los Angeles during the 1980s.